The Blubber

Per The New York Times

After a recent phone interview with Tiffany Fong, Sam Bankman-Fried went on another interview with The New York Times, revealing that he knew something was wrong on Nov 6 despite saying "FTX is fine" on Nov 7.

In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, SBF admitted that he knew something was wrong with the crypto brokerage on Nov 6 despite saying, "FTX is fine" on Nov 7.

Sorkin: "So, when do you think you knew there was a problem"

SBF: "So, ummm, the time that I really knew there was a problem was November 6."

The FTX founder noted that on Nov 6, the tweet about FTT came out, and this was when they were reportedly "putting together all of the data," which SBF notes they should have put together earlier.

SBF then acknowledged that "Alameda's fiction was big on FTX" while narrating how the exchange was bombarded with $4 billion dollars a day of client withdrawals. He then shared how they were trying to call prospectives and sources of financing "because I was nervous."

In a now-deleted tweet, SBF said that the events were just caused by a competitor and that they were just trying to go after the exchange with "false rumors." He then specifically stated, "FTX is fine. Assets are fine," per the photo of the tweet on CoinTelegraph.

The report notes that FTT was used to entice investors on FTX by offering them discounts. As the price of FTT would rise, Alameda, the main market maker of FTT, would collateralize the token on FTX for loans to boost their trading activities.

SBF removed his tweet on Nov 8 at around 10:30 UTC after word started to spread of Binance's intent to acquire FTX to save it from what was reported as a "severe liquidity crunch." This did not push through as Binance walked away from the deal less than 48 hours of due diligence, per FT.

Binance: "The issues are beyond our control or ability to help."

Resources:

The New York Times

CoinTelegraph

NYT

FT

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